The Current State of B2B Sales and Marketing

The Current State of B2B Sales and Marketing
Author: Edward B. Marsh
Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub
Total Pages: 106
Release: 2012-10-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781480178953

B2B Sales & Marketing faces an existential crisis. Most business owners and senior executives sense this intuitively. Many recognize it explicitly. Yet remarkably few have a clear strategy to adapt. Most B2B companies respond by increasing the intensity of their traditional direct sales approach – augmented by traditional marketing. And diminishing results and unclear ROI prompt them to scale back on the “marketing” and double down on the sales.But there's a problem – the way businesses buy has changed radically. And new variations on the traditional solutions merely achieve varying degrees of mediocrity.This book is intended for company founders, owners and senior execs who are disgusted with mediocrity. And it's intended to be read, digested, and acted upon.This is not an academic treatise. Nor is it a traditional 250 page business book full of typical bromides. Instead this is an “operations order” for your B2B marketing. The first half of the book is 'intel' – the intelligence on the current circumstances and considerations on the B2B battlefield. Trends and conditions are clearly outlined and carefully documented. And the circumstances your people will encounter are defined and explained.The second half is the 'battle plan.' Typical B2B companies can follow the sensible, manageable and attainable 13 step action plan – supported by worksheets and step-by-step to-dos.Companies looking for grand overviews of the business climate should honestly look elsewhere. But executives who ponder any of these questions will benefit:1. Why can't my marketing department provide any clear ROI details?2. What role should our website really play?3. Why are our salespeople consistently less effective now than they used to be?4. Why do we struggle to generate QUALIFIED leads?5. Is social media really relevant to our business?6. What is content marketing?7. I don't understand the gobbledygook our marketing people toss around. I wonder if they really do?8. How do successful companies do it?9. Sales & Marketing have changed – but I can't quite figure out why?10. We've got to grow…but how?For the owners of “regular” B2B companies these are fundamental questions – and the existential change in sales and marketing is indeed a crisis. But in crisis is opportunity. And this book provides the tools for business owners to seize that opportunity – that's why they should be pumped…and why, once they crack the code with this book, VPs of Sales & Marketing should be terrified!The bottom line is that buyers will find what they want. If you want to be part of that, you must adapt. Your sales rep is no longer brought into the purchasing process while it is less than 1/3 complete. Instead, today, your rep won't become involved until the process is nearly ¾ done. At that point (s)he is negotiating terms…if you're lucky. More likely other companies that have adapted their marketing are having discussions that your folks will never have.The good news is that it's completely in your power to change. Without 'geek speak' this book lays out the challenges you face, the leverage you have and the tools and action steps required to seize the equalizing opportunity that is available.It's your business. You're brutally busy – we know. We've owned businesses and so we conceived and designed this book to be quick to read, easy to digest and feasible to implement.Put your business back on top of even today's brutal markets.

The B2B Agenda

The B2B Agenda
Author: Frederik Derk Wiersema
Publisher:
Total Pages: 59
Release: 2012-11-01
Genre:
ISBN: 9780988548800

NAVIGATING B2B SALES

NAVIGATING B2B SALES
Author: Roland Kümin
Publisher: Tredition Gmbh
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-09
Genre:
ISBN: 9783347974227

Dive into the exciting and often surprising world of B2B sales with Navigating B2B Sales: The Digital Age Unpacked. This guidebook, curated from the best articles on B2BModernSelling.com, is more than a reference - it's an engaging narrative that is both informative and entertaining. Through sixteen distinct chapters, this book from Roland Kümin peels back the curtain on the current state of B2B sales, serving as an indispensable roadmap for entrepreneurs, accomplished sales and revenue individuals, and anyone keen to gain the upper hand in the digitally-driven marketplace of today. From the art of building an elite sales team to the intriguing rise of AI and MACH technology, we traverse a myriad of topics that sit at the heart of modern B2B sales. We'll delve into the significance of data, the simplification of the purchase process, the redefinition of customer value, and the fresh mindset required of today's B2B marketers. We discuss the role of authentic events, the importance of active listening, the innovative approaches to customer targeting, and the growing impact of video email communication. We conclude with a comprehensive overview of future B2B sales trends and a handy guide to the latest sales technologies. Navigating B2B Sales: The Digital Age Unpacked is your go-to resource for mastering the waves of the B2B sales ocean, making it a fun, insightful, and ultimately rewarding journey. Hop on board, and let's conquer the digital age of sales together!

A Critical Examination of the Recent Evolution of B2B Sales

A Critical Examination of the Recent Evolution of B2B Sales
Author: Cohn, Joel G.
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2024-02-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

The seismic shifts in B2B selling brought about by the recent global pandemic have left scholars grappling with the fundamental question of permanence. As the traditional face-to-face dynamics of B2B sales stand challenged, academic minds seek answers: Are these changes enduring, or will we revert to the familiar norms of in-person interactions? A Critical Examination of the Recent Evolution of B2B Salesis a groundbreaking exploration designed for academic scholars seeking clarity in these uncertain times. In the pursuit for understanding, scholars encounter a myriad of questions. What truly transpired in sales activities during the pandemic? Does the surge in virtual selling signify a lasting transformation, or is it merely a temporary adaptation? Critical thinking becomes paramount, necessitating a deep dive into published ideas to discern the strength of conclusions drawn. The academic community grapples with the challenge of scrutinizing the landscape to determine if the changes are indeed permanent and if so, how B2B sales forces can effectively adapt.

B2B Marketing

B2B Marketing
Author: Uwe G. Seebacher
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 754
Release: 2021-05-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030542920

This unique book comprehensively presents the current state of knowledge, theoretical and practical alike, in the field of business-to-business (B2B) marketing. More than 30 of the best and most recognized B2B marketers address the most relevant theoretical foundations, concepts, tried and tested approaches and models from entrepreneurial practice. Many of those concepts are published for the first time ever in this book. The book not only builds on the existing classic literature for industrial goods marketing but also – and much more importantly – finally closes the gap towards the rapidly growing ecosystem of modern B2B marketing terms, instruments, products, and topics. Technical terms such as Account-Based Marketing, Buyer Journey, ChatBots, Content AI, Marketing Automation, Marketing Canvas, Social Selling, Touchpoint Sensitivity Analysis, and Predictive Intelligence are explained and examined in detail, especially in terms of their applicability and implementation. The book as a whole reflects the B2B marketing journey so that the readers can directly connect the content to their own experience and use the book as a guide in their day-to-day work for years to come.

Handbook of Business-to-Business Marketing

Handbook of Business-to-Business Marketing
Author: Lilien, Gary L.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 713
Release: 2022-07-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1800376871

This path-breaking Handbook is targeted primarily at marketing academics and graduate students who want a comprehensive overview of the academic state of the business-to-business marketing domain. It will also prove an invaluable resource for forward-thinking business-to-business practitioners who want to be aware of the current state of knowledge in their domains.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Sales (with Bonus Interview of Andris Zoltners) (HBR's 10 Must Reads)

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Sales (with Bonus Interview of Andris Zoltners) (HBR's 10 Must Reads)
Author: Harvard Business Review
Publisher: HBR's 10 Must Reads
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2017-05-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781633694538

Sales isn't about pushing products or being efficient; it's about building the right systems to manage and empower your salespeople. If you read nothing else on sales, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you understand how to create the conditions for sales success. This book will inspire you to: Understand your customer's buying center Integrate your sales and marketing operations Assess your business cycle and its impact on your sales force Transition away from solution sales Leverage the power of micromarkets Introduce tiebreaker selling and consensus selling Motivate your sales force properly This collection of articles includes "Major Sales: Who Really Does the Buying," by Thomas V. Bonoma; "Ending the War Between Sales and Marketing," by Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham, and Suj Krishnaswamy; "Match Your Sales Force Structure to Your Business Life Cycle," by Andris A. Zoltners, Prabhakant Sinha, and Sally E. Lorimer; "The End of Solution Sales," by Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, and Nicholas Toman; "Selling into Micromarkets," by Manish Goyal, Maryanne Q. Hancock, and Homayoun Hatami; "Dismantling the Sales Machine," by Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, and Nicholas Toman; "Tiebreaker Selling," by James C. Anderson, James A. Narus, and Marc Wouters; "Making the Consensus Sale," by Karl Schmidt, Brent Adamson, and Anna Bird; "The Right Way to Use Compensation," by Mark Roberge; "How to Really Motivate Salespeople," by Doug J. Chung; and "Getting Beyond 'Show Me the Money, '" an interview with Andris Zoltners by Daniel McGinn.

Sales Growth

Sales Growth
Author: McKinsey & Company Inc.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2016-04-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1119281091

The challenges facing today's sales executives and their organizations continue to grow, but so do the expectations that they will find ways to overcome them and drive consistent sales growth. There are no simple solutions to this situation, but in this thoroughly updated Second Edition of Sales Growth, experts from McKinsey & Company build on their practical blueprint for achieving this goal and explore what world-class sales executives are doing right now to find growth and capture it—as well as how they are creating the capabilities to keep growing in the future. Based on discussions with more than 200 of today's most successful global sales leaders from a wide array of organizations and industries, Sales Growth puts the experiences of these professionals in perspective and offers real-life examples of how they've overcome the challenges encountered in the quest for growth. The book, broken down into five overarching strategies for successful sales growth, shares valuable lessons on everything from how to beat the competition by looking forward, to turning deep insights into simple messages for the front line. Page by page, you'll learn how sales executives are digging deeper than ever to find untapped growth, maximizing emerging markets opportunities, and powering growth through digital sales. You'll also discover what it takes to find big growth in big data, develop the right "sales DNA" in your organization, and improve channel performance. Three new chapters look at why presales deserve more attention, how to get the most out of marketing, and how technology and outsourcing could entirely reshape the sales function. Twenty new standalone interviews have been added to those from the first edition, so there are now in-depth insights from sales leaders at Adidas, Alcoa, Allianz, American Express, BMW, Cargill, Caterpillar, Cisco, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Deutsche Bank, EMC, Essent, Google, Grainger, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intesa Sanpaolo, Itaú Unibanco, Lattice Engines, Mars, Merck, Nissan, P&G, Pioneer Hi-Bred, Salesforce, Samsung, Schneider Electric, Siemens, SWIFT, UPS, VimpelCom, Vodafone, and Würth. Their stories, as well as numerous case studies, touch on some of the most essential elements of sales, from adapting channels to meet changing customer needs to optimizing sales operations and technology, developing sales talent and capabilities, and effectively leading the way to sales growth. Engaging and informative, this timely book details proven approaches to tangible top-line growth and an improved bottom line. Created specifically for sales executives, it will put you in a better position to drive sales growth in today's competitive market.

Maximizing Lead Generation

Maximizing Lead Generation
Author: Ruth Stevens
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0789741148

The Hands-On, Up-to-the-Minute Guide to Generating Better-Qualified, Quicker-to-Close B2B Leads! Lead generation is "Job One": B2B marketers' single most important objective. Maximizing Lead Generation brings together everything you need to know to do it right. Fast-paced and 100% practical, it will help you achieve outstanding results in any B2B marketplace from enterprise technology to industrial equipment to professional services. World-renowned expert Ruth P. Stevens helps you bring science and systematization to all facets of lead generation, building on process, best practices, continuous testing, and ongoing improvement. You'll learn how to maximize the value of tried-and-true B2B tools and the newest social, web, and search technologies. Stevens offers indispensable insights for the entire lead lifecycle, including qualification, nurturing, measurement, and tracking. Organized for clarity, usability, and speed, this book will help you supercharge salesforce productivity and company profits. You'll Learn How To: · Develop and refine rules that consistently lead to higher-quality leads · Gain deeper insights into your customers and their buying processes · Build sophisticated, accurate marketing databases · Identify the media most likely to work for you · Execute highly effective campaigns · Drive huge ROI improvements · Use BANT and other qualification criteria · Apply new "nurturing" techniques to convert "duds" into "diamonds" · Track results and quantify the business value of campaigns · Utilize best practices content marketing and marketing automation · Integrate continuous improvement into lead generation · Discover 10 trends that will transform the way you prospect